J.C. Derrick
C.J. Gish
Investigators looking into the deadly Tesla accident that killed two people last year at a rest area near Paynes Prairie have found it was caused by “human error.”
According to Lt. Pat Riordan, a Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) spokesman, investigators produced a 75-page report after a six-month probe.
“Early on there was a question from a lot of people that assumed it was a Tesla on automatic pilot, but what the investigation revealed is that the vehicle was not self-driving at the time of the accident,” Riordan said. “That vehicle was not equipped to be fully self-driving anyway.”
The crash occurred around 2 p.m. on July 6, 2022, when the 2015 Tesla sedan drove into an I-75 rest stop south of Gainesville and crashed into the back of a parked Walmart tractor-trailer.
“The car struck the curb on the right and went over and struck the trailer on the left,” Riordan said. “There were actually two collisions.”
The accident killed both passengers—the 66-year-old female driver and the 67-year-old male passenger—who were a married couple from Lompoc, California.
The FHP report revealed that the driver was not under the influence, Riordan said.